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DUDLEY, Mass. – Senior Tyler Shute (Mashpee, Mass.) struck out six over six innings to earn his second win of the season and help the Nichols College baseball team split their doubleheader with Endicott College Sunday afternoon in Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC).

The Bison held off the first-place Gulls in game one, 7-5, before the visitors rallied back to win game two, 9-2. Shute scattered 11 hits and allowed five runs (four earned) in the opener while freshman Scott Iacobucci (Hope, R.I.) drove in a pair of runs. Endicott sophomore Matthew Paola (Middlebury, Conn.) went 3-for-4 with three RBI in the nightcap.

Nichols pushed across single runs in the first and second innings of game one to build a 2-0 lead. Sophomore Benjamin Harrow (North Reading, Mass.) plated freshman Matt Hardy (North Attleboro, Mass.) in the first before Iacobucci's RBI groundout brought in junior Brett Franciosi (Leominster, Mass.) in the second.

The Bison tacked on three more in the fourth on RBI singles from Iacobucci, junior Evan Thompson (Longmeadow, Mass.), and junior Collin Geagan (Watertown, Mass.) to extend their lead to 5-0. Freshman Jeff Sylvester (Berlin, Conn.) made it 6-0 with an RBI single in the fifth.

The two schools traded runs in the sixth to send the game to the seventh with Nichols ahead 7-1. The Gulls struck for four runs in their last at bat – highlighted by back-to-back RBI doubles from senior Tad Gold (Martha's Vineyard, Mass.) and Paolo – before Nichols freshman closer Adam Rigney (Niantic, Conn.) recorded the final two outs.

Gulls senior Tyler Hill (Las Vegas, Nev.) was tagged for five hits and five runs in 3.2 innings of work as he fell to 4-3. He did not walk a batter and fanned one.

Endicott opened the scoring in game two when sophomore Steve Morganelli (Milford, Conn.) lifted a sac fly to centerfield in the second inning. The Bison scored twice in the bottom of the frame as sophomores Joseph Nicolace (Cranston, R.I.) and Greg Poll (East Granby, Conn.) laced RBI singles to put the home team up 2-1.

Paolo launched a long home run to right field to lead off the fourth and tie the game at two, then singled in two runs in the fifth to put the Gulls ahead 4-2. An unearned run in the sixth followed by two-run singles from sophomore Cody Hall (Rutland, Mass.) and junior Harry Oringer (Dartmouth, Mass.) in the seventh closed the scoring.

Sophomore Ryan McLane (Wallingford, Conn.) allowed five hits and four runs (two earned) with a pair of strikeouts in 4.1 IP in defeat. Freshman Eric Nagle (Manchester, Conn.)  gave up three hits and two runs with two walks and two strikeouts en route to his second win of 2014.

"We did everything right in the first game," said Nichols first-year head coach Nick Puccio. "We tell our guys that it comes down to executing at the plate. We got bunts down, stole bases, and got guys over and in. Our hitters didn't try to do too much, just put the ball in play. When you execute in baseball, you can beat anybody. We had some chances in game two, and when you're playing a good baseball team, you can't make mistakes. You can't fall behind hitters. The middle of their order is very, very good. It's as good as it gets as this level. It's tough because it knocked us out (of playoff contention), but taking one from a very good program shows we're moving in the right direction."

Nichols travels to Western New England for a pair of games against the Golden Bears Monday beginning at 2:30 p.m. The Gulls host UMass Boston Monday at 3:30 p.m.